I live in Los Angeles and I'm lucky enough to write about the thing I love most: movies. I'm a graduate of Vassar College and Northwestern University and for 15 years I worked at Forbes mostly covering the entertainment industry. Although I've moved into the world of corporate journalism, I still contribute blog posts here.

Why Ben Affleck And Anne Hathaway Have The Most At Stake At This Year's Oscars

Affleck seems poised to win for Best Picture without earning a Best Directing nod.

The countdown to the Oscars is in full swing and while the stars are busy starving themselves and getting massages and face peels, their agents and accountants are thinking about money.

While the Oscars are about artistic achievement, it’s foolish to think that money doesn’t play a part. An Oscar win can mean a small bump for a movie but it can mean big things for reputations and careers. Sandra Bullock will forever be taken more seriously as an actress because of her Oscar win in 2010.

Here are five people who have the most at stake this Sunday, win or lose.

Ben Affleck

Many people were shocked when Affleck got shut out of the Best Director category even though his film, Argo, earned seven nominations overall. With nine films nominated for Best Picture and only five slots for Best Director, someone was bound to end up empty handed, but many assumed it would more likely be first-time director Benh Zeitlan.

It’s almost unheard of for a film to win Best Picture and not also win Best Director and early odds had Lincoln pegged as the film most likely to win both.

But now common wisdom is shifting and suddenly Argo looks like the film to beat for Best Picture.

As Affleck has pointed out, no one is crying out that he was snubbed for Best Actor. Affleck has a great career ahead of him in this town as a director. If Argo can win for Best Picture without him even being nominated for Best Director, it will say a lot about his reputation in Hollywood and give his directing career a big boost.

Anne Hathaway

There are few sure things in Hollywood but Hathaway winning for Best Supporting Actress this year is one of them. She’s already won a slew of awards for her brief appearance in Les Miserables including a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award. Almost everyone expects her to walk away with a little gold man on Sunday night.

But what if she loses? It would be quite a blow. Farsite forecast has her at a 97.8% chance of winning. Her closest competition is from Helen Hunt who has a 1.1% chance of winning on Sunday. It will be awful if we have to watch a close-up of Hathaway’s smiling face as someone else takes the award that was meant for her but this is the category that is the most prone to surprises. Remember in 1993 when Marissa Tomei beat out such luminaries as Judy Davis and Vanessa Redgrave?

Pixar

Since the Best Animated Feature award was introduced in 2001, Pixar has been the 800-pound gorilla in the room. The animation studio has won almost every time it was nominated. The only nominated Pixar films that didn’t win were Monsters Inc. and Cars.

Another Pixar movie, Brave, was nominated this year but it’s up against Wreck-It Ralph from Disney studios, which now owns Pixar and shares a creative director in John Lasseter. As one critic put it, Pixar made a Disney movie this year and Disney made a Pixar film. Many felt that Wreck-It Ralph had much more heart than Brave and there’s a good chance it will win the award on Sunday night. Brave earned more at the box office with $533 million at the global box office. Since Disney and Pixar are so intertwined right now, it doesn’t matter too much for the company which wins but it will mark a shift if Wreck-It Ralph walks away with the award.

Steven Spielberg

Although Lincoln might not win Best Picture, Spielberg is still considered the odds-on favorite to win Best Director. But like Hathaway, Spielberg could be in for some big-time embarrassment if he loses. With Affleck out of the race his biggest competitor is Ang Lee who is getting a bit of momentum for Life of Pi going into the awards. It’s unlikely to be enough to unseat Spielberg who is considered a national treasure in Hollywood and a man no one wants to get angry.

Seth MacFarlane

Usually, the Academy picks an actor or comedian to host the awards. MacFarlane is kind of both but also kind of neither. His voice is much better known than his face thanks to his show Family Guy where he voices at least four characters. MacFarlane is also a not-so-secret singer. He often sings on his show and his song, Everybody Needs A Best Friend from his hit movie Ted, is actually nominated for an Oscar.

But hosting the show can be a real landmine. He won’t be able to do the raunchy material he’s become famous for with Family Guy and Ted and he’ll have to balance insider jokes for the audience at the Dolby Theater with broader jokes for the millions of people watching at home. If he pulls it off, it could put MacFarlane on a path to more hosting gigs and get his face as well-known as his name. If he bombs, well everyone will still love Family Guy.

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With Oscar time fast approaching, the public frequently forget that the race may seem to be about a movie. However, it is really a prom queen race, with a select group of people voting, the members of the academy. As in all prom queen races those select voters choose their own reasons for voting and in honesty it may have nothing to do with the movie in question. So is Anne’s wardrobe malfunction enough to take away from the past glories of the Fly nun. I enjoyed Anne’s singing, yet Sally Field’s persistence in the industry might just tip the scale. Just remember even on Glee in was Kirk who won prom queen, as a write in.

I’m glad that you haven’t mentioned Kathryn Bigelow and the supposed “shock” that, like Affleck, she didn’t get a best director nod. Sad enough that her fictionalized movie about the killing of Bin Laden is up for best picture. I go into this in my Forbes blog at http://blogs.forbes.com/craigsilver/